Downtime
by TacticianLyra
Summary: In which Stan is reminded that, despite everything, Molly was still a kid.


**This oneshot is set in an AU that I refer to as the _Stranded AU_. ****For lack of a good explanation as to what exactly it is at this current moment, it's basically me going "Canon ending? What canon ending?"**

 **It's also me wanting to write character interactions this awkward space family never got, so. Yes.**

 **Comments are greatly appreciated and feed both my muse and my self-confidence.**

* * *

One thing about Ōban that had become pretty obvious was that the weather was kind of like Earth's, at least in the (un)predictability aspect—it had been a little cloudy when Stan had first gotten up that morning, and then it had started looking like dusk before noon.

Then the sky had opened up, and it was learned the hard way that the various hills and cliffs weren't very stable after two hours of nonstop rain. All that Stan knew for sure was **A)** that both Jordan and Aikka were somewhere in the forest below the plateau, and **B)** regardless of how he landed, that fall could _not_ have been good for the gunner's injured leg.

What Jordan had even been doing outside of the ruin they were all camped out in, he had no idea. Canaan had gone out to look for them about an hour ago.

"Any sign of them?" Don asked.

"Not yet," Koji replied, squinting and looking out—not that it did much good, considering the veritable wall of water just beyond the stone canopy. That it seemed to be getting darker by the minute wasn't helping. In the back of the room, Molly was pacing back and forth, her expression unreadable.

That was the other source of tension. She'd clarified that she wanted to go by her alias until further notice, and was pointedly avoiding Don (Apparently her father? _Since when_?) if she could help it.

It wasn't until the sky had gone dark that Stan finally said, "If I were any of them, I'd stay put until morning." Koji nodded in silent agreement.

Molly stopped pacing, but kept her gaze fixed on the floor. For a few seconds, it almost looked like Don was going to say something to her, but there was a stifled sigh instead before he went for the doorway.

Interactions between those two had since become borderline painful to watch, and Koji wasn't so quick to try defending the team's manager anymore. Instead, he quietly remarked "I'm sure they'll be back by morning," to Molly as he and Stan were leaving the room.

 _Maybe sooner than that,_ Stan thought. Jordan could match Molly in stubbornness when he really wanted to, injured or not—though Stan was hoping that Jordan would just stay wherever he was.

That leg was fractured at the _least_ in the whatever-the-hell thing that the kids had gone through, and a roughly-a-week wasn't nearly long enough for something like that to heal.

Koji stopped halfway to the room they'd been sharing, before asking "You don't think Molly would go out looking for them, do you?"

"That wouldn't surprise me," was the honest answer given.

* * *

But as it turned out, that didn't happen.

Stan wasn't sure what had woken him up at first. The downpour outside had since faded into background noise, and it hadn't been thunder. Then he heard the nearly-inaudible footsteps approaching, prompting him to glance over toward the doorway that didn't actually have a door.

He could only make out a shadow at the moment, but he had an idea on who it might be. "Molly?" he guessed, and the figure froze. "What're you doing up?"

"I-I, um," she stuttered a little, before sighing quietly in resignation. "I just…I can't sleep."

That was perfectly understandable. Stan was currently wishing that he was better with words at that moment—Koji was better at that by a startling amount, given how contrary he could be with being social in general, but Koji was typically out like a light at the end of the day.

Now that his eyes were adjusting a bit more to the dark, he could see that she was holding a few blankets, probably from the room she usually shared with the other two boys. "Uh, is there…something you wanna talk about, or…?"

"Not really," was the quick response. "I mean, it's just that I—" Molly stopped abruptly, seeming to rethink what she was saying before, voice gradually getting quieter, finishing with "I was kinda wondering if I could…maybe stay in here tonight?"

Of all the things Stan had thought she'd ask, that had not been one of them.

At the same time, it was a known secret that all three of the kids had nightmares. They never said a word, but it was kind of hard to ignore at least one of them waking up screaming every other night.

Any idea on how to answer her question verbally simply did not come to him, so he settled with moving to the side; Molly took the space without another word, setting one of the blankets on the floor before sitting down. A total of five seconds went by before she asked "Where's Koji?"

Stan pointed in response, and she stared at the small heap of blankets for a few long seconds. "How is he able to breathe under all of those?"

"I _still_ have no idea."

She laughed a bit at that, the sound quiet and almost indistinguishable over the rain.

At least a month's worth of knowing each other, and this was probably the longest conversation he'd held with her. Something about that didn't feel right, but having to stifle a yawn reminded him of the time. "You know staying up's not going to do them any good, right?"

"Yeah, but…think they'll be back by tomorrow morning?"

"We won't know until tomorrow."

"What if they're not, though?"

Molly actually sounded her age for once. It was kind of alarming how often Stan forgot she was only fifteen.

"Then we'll go looking for them," he promised.

She didn't reply, instead looking back toward the doorway to the balcony that overlooked the expanse of forest below. Covering that had taken a bit of creativity, with the tarp from the _Arrow_ being kept in place on the small ledge above the doorway with a few rocks, so that it kept the rain and (most of the) wind out.

A few minutes later, a flicker of lightning followed by a particularly-loud thunderclap had two results. One, it provided enough light for him to see that Molly was asleep finally.

Two, it did the unlikely and woke Koji up—though all he did was stare at Molly for a few seconds, before mumbling something incomprehensible and going back to sleep. It could easily had been his overtired mind confusing the incessant rain for words, but Stan thought he heard Molly say something back.

Honestly, those two. Koji, Stan knew exactly how to deal with. Molly, not _nearly_ as much. If at all.

Rick was probably the first person who figured Molly out, but he'd left before they'd come to Ōban. So maybe a few pointers taken would be alright, like reaching over to tousle her hair a bit.

No reaction came from her, but given that she'd been forcing herself to stay awake waiting for Jordan and Aikka to come back, it wasn't a complete surprise.

This entire situation was absolutely bizarre and the fact that it felt like it was maybe three in the morning wasn't helping with that.

Then again, all sense of normalcy had _long_ since flown out the metaphorical window, so there wasn't really a point in Stan pretending that it was there still.


End file.
